June 9, 2012

ILLINOIS TEACHERS BEWARE: Your Pension System Is A Scam. “Specifically, the Illinois Teachers Retirement Fund is one of the country’s worst funded pension funds. According to accountants — who use softer methods to measure the health of public funds than they do of private pensions — teacher pensions in Illinois are only 45 percent funded — the fund is expected to be able to pay less than half the pensions Illinois politicians and union heads have been promising for years. . . . It is, in other words, a scam. Both the politicians and the unions want to fool people. They want teachers to think they have secure pensions and they want taxpayers to think that these big pension promises won’t cost them much money. Assuming unrealistic rates of return allows them to square the circle: they can promise big pensions without raising taxes to pay for them right away.”